sec  #11,078 

The  necessity  of  protecting 
the  sabbath,  in  cities  and 


TRACTS   t^OR  THE  PEOPl-E.— No.  5. 


THE  NECESSITY 
or 

tl 
PROTECTING  THE  SABBATH, 

IN  CITIES  AND  IN  THE  COUNtRY,  ^ROM 

DESECRATION: 

ESPECIALLY  FROM  THAT 

PERNICIOUS  FORM  AND  CAUSE  OF  ITS  PROFANATION, 


THE 


SUNDAY  LIQUOR  TRAFFIC* 


NEW    YORKt 
J.   S.   REDFIELD,   CLINTON   HALL, 

CORNER   OF   NASSAU   AND   BEEKMAN   STREETS. 

1849. 


BOOKS  PUBLISHED  BY  J.  S.  REDFIELD. 
For  Schools, .  Academies,  and  Self-Instruction. 

^  THE  - 

AMERICAN     DRAWING-BOOK. 

BY  JOHN  G.  CHAPMAN,  N.  A. 

This  Work  will  be  published  in  Parts  ;  in  the  coarse  of  whicb^ 

PRIMARY  INSTRUCTIONS  AND  RUDIMENTS  OF  DRAWING' 

DRAWING  FROM  NATURE —  MATERIALS  AND  METHODS: 

PERSPECTIVE  — COMPOSITION  — LANDSCAPE  — FIGURES,  ETC  : 

DRAWING,  AS  APPLICABLE  TO  THE  MECHANIC  ARTS: 

PAINTING  IN  OIL  AND  WATER  COLORS: 

THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  LIGHT  AND  SHADE: 

EXTERNAL    ANATOMY  OF  THE    HUMAN    FORM,  AND  COMPARATIVE 

ANATOMY: 
THE  VARIOUS  METHODS  OF  ETCHING,  ENGRAVING,  MODELLING,  Etc 

Will  be  severally  treated,  separately ;  so  that,  as  far  as  practicable,  each 
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of  Study  for  tlie  Professional  Artist,  as  well  as  a  valuable  Assistant 
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the  subject  is  treated  throughout. 

The  want  of  such  a  work,  has  been  the  great  cause  of  neglect  in  this 
important  branch  of  education  ;  and  this  want  is  at  once  and  fully  sup- 
plied by  the  — 

AMERICAN     DRAWING-BOOK: 

npon  which  Mr.  Chapman  has  been  for  years  engaged ;  and  it  is  now 
produced,  without  regard  to  expense,  in  all  its  details,  and  published  at 
a  price  to  place  ft  within  the  means  of  every  one. 

The  Work  will  be  published  in  large  quarto  form,  put  np  in  substan- 
tial covers,  and  issued  as  rapidly  as  the  careful  execution  of  the  numer- 
ous engravings,  and  the  mechanical  perfection  of  the  whole,  will  allow. 

It#^  Any  one  Part  may  be  had  separately. 


Price  50  Cents  each  Part» 

I^  The  DRAWING  COPY-BOOKS,  intended  as  auxiliary 
to  the  Work,  in  assisting  Teachers  to  carry  out  the  system  of  instruction, 
especially  in  the  Primary  and  Elementary  parts,  form  a  new  and  valu- 
able addition  to  the  means  of  instruction.  They  will  be  sold  at  a  cost 
little  beyond  that  of  ordmary  blank-books. 

^«G9»a-8- ■ _^. 


THE  TEMPTATIONS  OF  CITY  LIFE. 


First  Visit  to  the  City  iii  Pursuit  of  a  new  Home  and  Fortune. — A  Crisis 
in  Human  Life. — Friendly  Sollcitudo  for  Young  Men  in  large  Town.s,  as 
being  in  Circumstances  of  distinguished  Promise  and  Peril. — Tempta- 
tions arising  from  an  Exchange  of  accustomed  for  strange  and  ever- 
changing  Scenes,  denying  to  Virtue  the  Succor  of  the  Kno^^^l  and  Fa- 
miliar.— Temptations  arising  from  the  Want  of  the  Conservative  Influ- 
ences of  Home,  the  Divinely- appointed  and  natural  Defence  of  Virtue. — 
Temptations  arising  from  a  prevailing  Over-Estimate  of  Wealth,  and 
fraudulent  Methods  ofBasincss,  impairing  the  Sensitiveness  and  Strength 
of  Conscience,  and  the  Foundations  of  Integrity,  and  removing  a  princi- 
pal Ban-ier  to  general  Immorality', — Temptations  arising  from  Diversi- 
fied Examples  of  Wickedness  in  apparent  Impunity  and  Triumph,  im- 
pairing Confidence  in  the  Reality  of  a  Moral  Government,  and  thus  re- 
moving a  powerful  Restraint  from  precipitant  Passions. — Temptations 
arising  from  specific  Appeals  M  particular  Passions  and  Weaknesses  of 
Human  Nature,  surprising  dormant  and  latent  Depravity  into  formidable 
Manifestation  and  Activity. — Temptations  arising  from  tlie  cor  sealed 
Character  of  City  Life,  precluding  tiie  Ffbuke  or  Knowledge  of  Friends, 
or  any  amenable  Relation  to  the  Communit\%  and  fostering  the  corrupt- 
ing Delusion  of  a  twofold  Atheism  —  a  Feeling  of  not  being  accountable 
to  God  or  Man. — Triumphing  over  these  united  Temptations,  a  Youth 
may  rise  to  a  Destiny  of  unrivalled  Glory  :  falling  before  them,  he  may 
sink  to  a  Doom  of  unparalleled  rufamy  and  Miseiy. 

Dear  Young  Friend:  Your  first  journey  to  the  city, 
in  pursuit  of  a  new  home  and  fortune,  is  doubtless  re- 
tained among  your  most  interesting  recollections.  Scenes 
were  flitting  before  your  mental  vision,  as  new  and  tran- 
sient as  aspects  of  the  landscape,  varying  in  rapid  suc- 
cession, with  the  direction  and  speed  of  the  stage,  the 
car,  or  steamboat,  that  was  hurrying  you  to  a  new  des- 
tiny. The  near  approach  to  the  place  of  your  future 
abode  was  at  length  announced ;  and  looking  from  the 
window  of  the  stage  as  it  rose  an  eminence,  or  from  the 
1 


TEAJLPTATIONS    OF    CITY    Ll 


f 


car  or  steamboat,  as  it  wound  round  a  hill  or  forest, 
or  turned  a  point  in  the  river  or  bay,  you  obtained  the 
first  glimpse  of  some,  lofty.  dom6  or  spire,  or  elevated 
section  of  the  town,  peering  out  in  distinctness  from  its 
yet  undefined  extent  and  monotonous  aspect.  Soon  the 
whole  city  is  expanded  upon  your  view.  Entering  its 
precincts,  with  strange  sights  flitting  before  your  eyes, 
strange  sounds  falling  upon  your  ears,  and  strange  sensa- 
tions thrilling  your  bosoms,  you  wended  your  Way  amid 
different  orders  of  architectural  magnificence  and  mean- 
ness— temples  of  justice  and  religion  in  close  proximity 
to  sombre  prison  walls,  alternate  sections  and  squares 
of  princely  residences  and  of  squalid  habitations  of  gaunt 
poverty,  idleness,  and  crime — to  a  place  of  temporary  or 
permanent  lodgings. 

Finding  repose  from  such  protracted  and  unaccustom- 
ed excitements,  you  could  hardly  realize  that  you  were  in 
a  great  metropolis.  Your  imagination  had  often  glowed 
with  undefined  visions  of  magnificence  and  glory,  as  in 
the  annals  of  history  and  the  journals  of  tourists  you 
had  traced  the  extent,  wealth,  and  splendors  of  ancient 
and  modern  cities ;  the  abodes  of  sovereigns,  senates, 
and  courts  ;  the  emporiums  of  letters  ;  the  marts  of  com- 
merce ;  and  the  galleries  of  arts.  Brought  thus  into  local 
association  with  all  the  affluence  of  wealth,  honor,  and 
happiness,  only  fortune,  fame,  and  pleasure,  were  seen 
in  the  mental  perspective,  and  sanguine  hope  repelled 
every  doubt  of  success  : — 

"  For  life  itself  was  new, 


And  the  heart  promised  what  the  fancy  drew." 
That  was  a  crisis  in  your  life,  a  turning  point  of  your 
destiny.  The  present  retains  its  bias,  and  the  future  will 
receive  its  character  from  that  period.  Trusting  that  the 
interests  of  that  crisis  are  not  wholly  compromised,  and 
are  yet  capable  of  a  wiser  and  more  beneficent  direction, 


TSMPTATTONS    OP    CITY    LIFE.  O 

we  address  to  you  these  few  lines  of  affectionate  and  ear- 
nest counsel. 

That  book  of  sacred  scripture  whl'^jh  contains  the  prac- 
tical wisdom  of  antiquity,  opens  its  address  to  the  age 
and  promise  of  youth.  An  ancient  philosopher,  also, 
wishing  to  render  the  most  important  service  to  his  coun- 
try, devoted  him.self  to  the  instruction  of  the  youth  of 
her  metropolis;  regarding  the  young  men  of  Athens  as. 
prospectively  the  most  important  class  in  Greece,  and 
surrounded  by  circumstances  at  once  of  distinguished 
promise  and  peril.  And  all  enlightened  philanthropists — 
tracing  the  germ  of  human  destiny  in  the  incipient  for- 
mation of  character;  the  elements  of  the  individual,  social, 
and  national  welfare  of  a  people  in  the  discipline  of 
youth;  and  the  hope  of  the  church  and  of  the  state  in  the 
promise  of  the  rising  generation — will  seek  the  ameliora- 
tion of  human  society  chiefly  by  instructing  and  coun- 
selling the  young.  They  will  particularly  address  them 
in  the  periods  and  circumstances  of  their  greatest  hope 
and  hazard.  The  youth  of  our  cities  stand  upon  a  special 
vantage-gi'ound  for  achieving  good  or  ill,  and  for  weal 
or  wo  will  soon  control  the  great  agencies  of  human 
power.  They  are  therefore  the  objects  of  the  highest 
hopes  and  greatest  fears  of  the  wise  and  good  —  the  most 
exciting  spectacle  that  can  be  presented  to  the  eye  of 
philanthropy  and  religion.  A  voice  from  Heaven,  like 
that  addressed  to  the  prophet,  says,  "  Go  speak  to  that 
young  man."  "  Go  to  him  as  he  resolves  to  seek  his  for 
tune  in  the  city ;  as  he  approaches  the  metropolis  with 
his  head  teeming  with  wild,  fancies,  exeitements,  and 
hopes;  as  he  enters  the  enchanted  sphere  of  city  life  j 
as  he  selects  his  boarding-house,  his  profession,  his  mode 
and  place  of  business ;  as  he  determines  his  companion- 
ship, his  amusements,  and  his  place  of  worship.  Go,  ut- 
ter in  his  inexperienced  ear  those  words  of  wisdom  that 


6  TEMPTATION'S    OF    ClTY    LIFE!. 

have  souneled  aloug  the  eras  of  revelation,  echoed  from 
every  page ;  that  have  come  from  the  Ups  of  all  the  wise 
and  good,  swelled  by  the  concurrent  utterance  of  succes- 
sive generations  ;  that  have  fallen  in  aftectionate  accents 
from  the  lips  of  fond  and  revered  parents,  and  now  come 
with  sacred  memories  fr(;in  the  home  of  his  childhood, 
or  in  mournful  and  ])cr;-uasive  reminiscences  from  tlicir 
'graves  ;  that  have  been  sternly  and  authoritatively  uttered 
by  his  conscience  in  his  purest  days,  and  return  with  ev- 
ery thought  of  death  and  a  final  judgment.  Go,  kinJly 
and  faithfully  point  out  to  him  the  various  perils  that  sui'- 
round  him;  the  influences  that  menace  his  character; 
the  exalted  destiny  to  which  he  may  rise — the  infamous 
doom  to  which  he  may  fall." 

1.  T/ie  first  class  of  temjftatlo/is  incident  to  tlie  pur- 
suit of  a  new  liomc  and  fortune  in  the  city,  arises  out 
of  a  removal  from  familiar  to  new  and  ever-varying 
scenes.  Habits  of  virtue  become,  conformed  to  one's  so- 
cial relations,  secular  j^ursuits,  and  association  with  ex- 
teiTial  objects.  They  are  supported  by  the  alliance  of 
the  known  and  familiar;  which,  like  the  outposts  of  a 
military  encampment,  cover  every  avenue  to  the  soul, 
guarding  against  the  insidious  approaches  of  vice,  and 
Rummonitig  the  forces  of  virtue  at  the  least  approach  of 
danger. 

Even  inanimate  scenes,  familiar  from  childhood,  seera 
invested  with  moral  power.  Tlie  fields  and  hills  over 
which  his  boyish  feet  trod ;  the  brook  over  which  he 
leaped ;  the  beaten  path  through  the  wood  or  the  grave- 
yard ;  the  mountain  gilded  to  his  vision  by  the  early  light 
of  morning ;  the  murmuring  waterfall,  the  leaping  cas- 
cade, or  the  rushing  cataract ;  the  ocean  dashing  and 
roaring  at  his  adventurous  feet  along  a  familiar  beach  ; 
the  trees  beneath  whose  shade  ho  played  ;  and  the  school- 


TEMPTATIONS    OF    riTV    LIFE.  T 

house,  and  the  cliuroli  wliere  lie  learned  and  worshipped 
—  all,  by  a  mysterious  association  with  early  life,  thought, 
and  education,  ally  him  to  the  true,  the  pure,  and  the  good. 
All  familiar  sounds  blend  in  sweet  and  harmonious  ac- 
cents of  persuasion  to  a  life  of  virtue.  All  familiar  ob- 
jects, memorials  of  the  obligations,  temptations,  privi- 
leges, and  revrards  of  virtuous  life,  seem  to  smile  upon 
uprigiit  conduct  and  to  frown  upon  the  least  transgres- 
sion. 

Severing  these  accustomed  alliances,  youth  enters  up- 
on the  strange  scenes  of  the  city,  its  dazzling  splendors 
and  bewildering  excitements  transporting  to  an  un- 
healthy activity  all  his  susceptible  faculties.  The  pro- 
tection of  former  habits  is  withdrawn,  and  virtue  finds 
nothing  on  which  to  repose.  She  wends  her  unaccus- 
tomed way  amid  the  strange,  the  fascinating,  and  temjDt- 
ing,  unaided  by  the  memorials  and  alliances  of  the  past; 
and  she  has  little  facility  for  forming  associations  that 
might  replace  her  former  supports. 

Entrance  upon  city  life  is  not  merely  one  great  change, 
but  an  introduction  to  a  perpetual  succession  of  changes. 
Assimilated  to  the  circumstances  and  tastes  of  the  city, 
the  mind  acquires  a  disrelish  for  the  repose  of  steady 
habits,  and  morbidly  craves  novelties  vrith  their  surprises, 
their  winning  appeal?,  and  insidious  temptations.  Places 
of  business,  of  residence,  and  of  worship,  are  changed  with 
such  facility  and  frequency,  as  to  prevent  the  forming  of 
conservative  personal  and  local  attachments.  No  hallowed 
memories  cluster,  in  daily  scenes,  around  the  youthful 
stranger.  The  path  of  life  is  not  indicated  to  him  by 
familiar  waymarks,  as  to  the  shepherd  or  the  husband- 
man, cheering  and  giving  confidence  to  cacii  successive 
step  ;  but  is  like  the  couise  of  the  travellei-  through  the 
desert.  Though  thousands  are  travelling  in  nearly  the 
same  direction,  and  ]\c  have  himself  passed  and  repassed 
2* 


W-  TEMrTATIOXP    OP    CiTi'    I. IFF. 

a  hundred  times  in  the  same  general  course,  the  yielding 
sand  and  clouds  of  dust  leave  no  familiar  traces.  The 
ways  of  life  are  moveaLle,  and  the  walks  and  retreats  of 
virtue,  are  not  identified  with  their  accustomed  attrac- 
tions of  congenial  companionship,  pleasing  associations, 
and  improving  entertainments. 

Even  the  co-ordinate  supports  of  intimate  and  lasting 
friendship  are  but  partially  allowed.  Friendshi2;)s  are 
too  cheap,  too  easily  available,  to  be  greatly  valued  and 
sacredly  guarded.  There  is  little  inducement  to  forbear- 
ance, explanation,  and  conciliation  ;  if  one  is  alienated, 
the  hand  of  another  has  already  been  prolfered.  A  dozen 
different  circles  of  acquaintance  may  have  been  passed 
through  and  abandoned  in  as  many  months. 

The  sentiment  of  friendship  is  impaired  or  worn  out. 
Youth  goes  armed  with  a  selfish  and  suspecting  neutral- 
ity; he  reposes  confidence  in  few,  is  distrustful  of  all. 
Recognising  no  connexion  with  others  in  venerable  rela- 
tions and  sacred  interests,  there  is  nothing  in  the  way 
of  lawless  passions ;  the  protection  of  moral  interests 
is  wanting,  as  would  be  that  of  pecuniary  possessions  in 
the  removal  of  the  laws  of  property.  The  barriers  of 
vice  are  thrown  down  in  every  direction,  and  the  strong- 
holds of  virtue  removed.  A  course  of  life  opened  up 
through  such  new  and  strange  associations  and  perpetu- 
ally-recurring changes,  dissevered  from  the  alliances  of 
the  past,  the  conservative  influences  of  permanent  local 
attachments,  and  selected  and  lasting  friendships,  must  be 
fraught  with  innumerable  temptations  and  perils  to  the 
young. 

Allow  not,  then,  that  love  of  novelty  that  will  enlarge 
and  strengthen  these  temptations,  but  rather  repress  it. 
Seek  as  far  as  possible  permanent  associations  in  busi- 
ness, comj)anionship,  and  in  religious  worship.  Idle  cu- 
riosity leads  not  to  wisdom  and  virtue,  but  to  dissipation 


TEMPTA110N8    OF    CITY    LIFE.  Wt. 

and  vice.  A  morbid  disposition  to  hear  distinguished 
preachers  and  see  new  chapels,  ministers  not  to  the  pur- 
pose of  the  sabbath  and  of  worship;  but  fosters  religious 
dissipation,  and  leads  ultimately  to  the  abandonment  of 
all  places  of  worship. 

Be  not  ambitious  of  the  credit  of  having  seen  all  that 
the  great  metropolis  contains.  The  eyes  are  seldom  sat- 
isfied with  seeing  or  the  ears  with  hearing  till  the  visita- 
tion of  disgust  and  rain.  You  had  better  crawl  through 
the  turbid  filth  of  its  sewers  to  gain  this  credit,  than  to 
seek  to  explore  all  its  hidden  abominations.  Wise  is  the 
youth  who  tries  to  see  how  near  he  can  strike  his  oar 
upon  the  verge  of  the  cataract  and  escape ;  or  how  near 
he  can  leave  the  mark  of  his  skate  to  an  opening  in  the 
ice ;  or  how  far  inward  he  can  move  upon  the  circling 
eddies  of  the  whirlpool  to  feel  the  sensation  of  the  mo- 
tion, and  fathom  its  sounding  rocks  and  yawning  vortex  ; 
compared  with  him  whose  infatuated  curiosity  leads  him 
to  explore  indiscriminately  the  evil  and  the  good.  Ra- 
ther look  at  the  good,  the  pure,  and  the  true,  and,  like 
Bunyan's  pilgrim,  putting  your  fingers  in  your  ears,  flee 
from  all  scenes  of  profligacy  and  dissipation.  Avoid  the 
ways  of  sinners  and  the  seats  of  the  scornful,  the  instruc- 
tions of  error,  the  blasphemies  of  infidelity,  the  gay  cir- 
cles of  dissipating  amusements,  and  insidious  temptations ; 
as  far  as  possible  reproduce  the  alliances  and  associa- 
tions of  virtue  you  have  left ;  maintain  tli^i  same  regular 
habits  ;  and  let  not  the  surprise  of  novel  temptations  and 
unexpected  gusts  of  passion  sweep  you  away. 

2.  Another  class  of  temptations  to  which  you  are  ex- 
posed,  nearly  related  to  those  already  mentioned^  arises 
from  the  want  of  the  conservative  influences  of  home. 

The  domestic  is  the  original  and  divinely-appointed 
order  of  human  society.     It  embraces  in  its  appropriate 


10  TEMPTATIONS    OF    CITV    LIFE. 

aud  concentric  circles  that  precise  classification  of  socie- 
ty which  is  adapted  to  give  scope  to  natural  affections,  re- 
press selfish  and  lawless  passions,  harmonize  the  interests 
and  protect  the  virtues  and  happiness  of  the  race. 

All  the  properlies  and  laws  of  Nature  are  reduced  to 
particular  relations  and  comhinations  adapted  to  subsen'e 
her  uv/n  beneficent  economy.  Any  disturbance  of  these 
relations  produces  commensurate  evils ;  while  any  new 
combination  might  explode  the  earth  to  fragments,  re- 
solve its  elements  into  chaos,  and  set  the  heavens  ou  fire 
as  a  scroll.  So  in  family  circles  and  associations,  all  the 
social  elements  are  reduced  to  their  most  auspicious  and 
conservative  relations.  The  virtue  of  each  becomes  the  in- 
terest of  the  whole,  aud  all  are  armed  against  the  incur- 
sion of  lawless  passions  and  disorganizing  vice,  as  against 
the  invasion  of  a  dreaded  foe,  by  an  appeal  to  their 
hearths,  and  fires,  and  altars,  the  pure  aud  blessed  fellow- 
ship of  their  home.-.  Any  other  order  of  alliances,  there- 
fore, superseding  this,  would  as  manifestly  thwart  the  be- 
neficent designs  of  Providence,  and  jeopard  the  higher 
interests  of  mankind,  as  the  disorganization  of  churches, 
or  the  anarchy  of  states. 

Says  President  Dwight :  *•  There  is  nothing  in  this 
world  which  is  so  venerable  as  the  character  of  parents; 
nothinor  so  intimate  and  endearins^  as  the  relation  of 
husband  and  wife  ;  nothing  so  tender  as  that  of  children  ; 
nothing  so  lovely  as  that  of  brothers  and  sisters."  And 
how  sweetly  are  the  united  attractions  of  these  relations, 
cherished  in  fond  reminiscence  and  virtuous  affections, 
celebrated  In  verse  !  — 

"  The  sounds  that  ffill  on  mortal  car 
As  devvdiops  pure  at  even, 
That  sooth  t!ic  breast  or  start  the  tear, 
Are  inother,  home,  and  heaven." 

And  again,  in  varied  expression : — 


TEMPTATIONS    OF    CITY    LIFE.  11 


*'  I  ne'er  shall  furget  tlioe. 
Blessed  home  of  my  heart! 
The  fond  recollections 

Thou  hringest  to  me 
Of  endearing  affections, 

Shall  hind  me  to  thee." 


Though,  like  the  various  beneficent  and  potential  agen- 
cies of  Nature,  no  passing  account  may  he  taken  of  this 
silent,  varied,  and  extensive  influence  of  home  upon  vir- 
tuous affections  — 

"  Yet  like  some  sweet,  heguiling  melody, 
Bo  sweet  we  know  not  we  are  listening  to  if, 
Thou  the  meanwhile  ai-t  blending  with  my  thoughts, 
Yea,  with  my  life;  and  life's  own  secret  joy." 

Domestic  influences  penetrate  the  soul,  unfold  and 
cherish  all  its  amiable  virtues  and  lovely  graces,  as  the 
sunlight,  bland  air,  and  genial  influences  of  the  morning 
open  the  rosebuds  and  early  flowers.  More  than  any 
other  influences,  they  win  upon  the  waywardness  and 
insubordination  of  youth,  and  restrain  from  incipient 
steps,  or  reclaim  from  the  advanced  progress  of  vice. 
When  tempted  to  seek  some  doubtful  amusement  or 
companionship,  their  influences  may  dissolve  the  en- 
chantment. When  actually  resolved  ujjon,  some  act  of 
adventurous  depravity,  some  alliance  of  dissipation  and 
profligacy,  they  may  break  the  fatal  infatuation,  and  reas- 
sure conscience.  All  dark  tlioughts,  that  harass  and  soil 
the  mind,  amid  the  temptations  of  business  and  worldly 
associates,  are  dissipated  by  the  light  of  home. 

Images  of  parental  authority  and  kindness  impressed 
upon  tlie  miud  by  daily  association,  attend  his  path,  be- 
set with  temptations,  as  guardian-angels.  The  fond 
mother  watches  over  his  path,  encouraging  and  reward- 
ing every  virtue  with  her  complaisant  and  affectionate 
smile,  forgiving  with  incomparable  charity  every  depre- 
cated evil,  and  with  sad  and  regretful  look  reproving  ev- 
ery allowed  fault.     The  wise  father  observes  with  ex- 


12  TEMPTATIONS    OF    CITY    LIFE. 

ulting  admiration  every  mark  of  developing  genius  and 
virtue,  or  with  intense  solicitude  every  unfavorable  token 
of  character  ;  and  with  gentleness,  authority,  and  affec- 
tion, imposes  his  hand  upon  his  head,  and  drops  the  warm 
tear  on  his  brow,  as  he  administers  counsel  and  reproof, 
or  supplicates  the  pardon  and  blessing  of  Heaven. 

Thus  viituo  nestles  and  grows  under  the  brooding 
wing  of  parental  care,  till  plumed  to  soar  in  lofty  and 
sustained  flight.  But  tempted  too  soon  abroad  to  essay 
the  rapid  and  precarious  flight  of  life,  and  buffet  its 
stoniis,  her  unaccustomed  wing  falters  with  unequal  and 
remitted  effort,  and  she  sinks  from  her  lofty  aim  and  na- 
tive impulse  to  the  degrading  level  and  grovelling  pur- 
suits of  vice,  and  is  seldom  able  to  regain  her  true  ele- 
vation and  resume  her  destined  course. 

Youth,  embowered  in  the  shady  and  genial  retreat  of 
home,  is  sheltered  from  the  unfriendly  influences  of  the 
world,  as  the  gi'aceful  undergrowth  of  the  forest  from 
sultry  heats  and  blasts  of  the  tempest,  by  the  stately  pines 
and  broad-araied  oaks.  While  the  forest  above  is  with- 
ered and  paled;  ancient  trees  are  stripped  of  their  giant 
branches,  or  rocked  in  their  beds,  and  precipitated  from 
exposed  summits  ;  the  pliant  sapling,  still  green  and  fresh, 
gently  waving  to  the  gale  that  sweeps  so  fiercely  above, 
loses  not  a  branch,  or  twig,  cy  leaf — but  striking  its  roots 
deeper,  and  grasping  with  multiplying  fibres  an  ampler 
extent  of  soil,  is  preparing  to  rear  its  head  against  the 
storm  and  defy  the  elements,  when  in  the  course  of  Na- 
ture the  protection  of  the  parent-forest  is  removed.  So 
youth,  sheltered  beneath  the  protection  of  home  from 
the  withering  heats  and  incursive  blasts  of  temptation, 
strikes  the  roots  of  virtue  deeper,  with  gradual  and  at- 
tempered trials,  till  in  due  course  prepared  to  endure  the 
vicissitudes  and  exposures  of  life ;  and  premature  remo- 
val from  these  protecting  influences  is  as  unnatural  and 


TEMPTATIOXa    OF    CITY    LIFE.  13 

likely  to  be  as  fatal  as  to  remove  the  sapling  from  the 
shielding  forest,  and  transplant  it,  with  mutilated  roota 
and  in  an  uncongenial  soil,  upon  an  exposed  hillside. 

Such  is  the  exposure  of  every  young  man  coming  from 
remote  parts  of  the  country  to  the  city  to  learn  a  busi' 
ness,  perfect  himself  in  a  profession,  or  to  gain  or  im- 
prove a  fortune.  Surrounded  by  new  and  innumerable 
temptations,  no  boarding-house,  with  the  most  select  as- 
sociations and  guardianship,  could  supply  the  conserva- 
tive influences  he  has  left.  But  with  his  first  scanty  in- 
come, he  can  avail  himself  only  of  the  poorest  accommo- 
dations of  an  unattractive  and  crowded  house.  No  quiet 
chamber  is  allowed  for  retirement  and  study ;  no  neat 
parlor,  free  from  the  interruptions  of  noise  and  the  intru- 
sion of  uncongenial  persons,  attracts  him  by  its  select 
companionship,  collection  of  useful  books,  and  choice 
cabinet. 

Discontented  and  repelled  from  this  poor  substitute 
for  a  home,  after  his  evening  meal,  he  may  read  the  fol- 
lowing, or  some  similar  advertisement  in  the  paper  : 
"  Citizens  and  strangers  wishing  to  spend  an  hour  com- 
fortably, in  a  quiet  and  beautifully-furnished  retreat, 
where  the  best  of  liquors,  wines,  and  segars,  are  offered, 
and  where  they  can  have  access  to  all  the  papers  of  the 
day,  besides  the  English  and  American  pictorials,  are 

respectfully  solicited  to  drop  in  at  No.  — , street." 

Or  he  may  go  out  by  invitation  of  some  fellow-boarder; 
or  stroll  abroad  in  quest  of  a  more  congenial  resort.  On 
almost  every  corner,  some  saloon  brilliantly  lighted,  opens 
its  attractive  portals.  It  is  furnished  on  a  scale  of  the 
richest  luxury,  with  splendid  mirrors,  costly  divans,  easy 
lounges,  and  tables  covered  with  late  journals  and  picto- 
rial works.  Paintings  of  great  artistic  merit,  arranged 
upon  the  walls,  and  exhibiting  the  nude  and  seductive 
forms  of  female   beauty,  appeal  to  the  ardent  passions 


ti  TEMPTATIONS    OF    CITV    LIFE. 

of  youth ;  and  corresponding  music  in  sweetest  strains 
steals  upon  his  senses.  Often,  to  add  to  the  attractions 
of  these  places,  varying  entertainments,  of  the  buffoon, 
danseuse,  and  the  ballad-singer,  are  funiished.  Capti- 
vated by  such  scenes,  unsuspecting  youth  repeats  his 
visits,  finds  out  other  similar  resorts,  and  finally  is  in  the 
habit  of  being  abroad  every  night,  and  is  found  at  his 
boarding-house  only  for  his  meals  and  late  lodgings.  He 
visits  all  the  distinguished  saloons,  refectories,  bowling- 
alleys,  theatres,  gambling-hells,  and  other  abodes  of  af- 
filiated infamy.  No  mother  waits  his  return  to  second, 
by  her  solicitous  inquiry,  the  reproofs  of  conscience  ;  no 
father  to  aid  the  returning  conviction  of  better  counsels, 
by  lessons  of  experience,  or  to  arrest  his  incipient  course 
of  evil  by  the  timely  interposition  of  yet  revered  author- 
ity ;  no  sister  to  recall  him  from  his  almost  unconscious 
estrangement  from  the  delicate  sympathies  of  virtue,  by 
her  sweet  voice  and  winning  smile. 

Removing  these  restraints  from  the  impetuosity  of 
youth  entering  a  large  city,  is  like  taking  off  the  brake 
from  a  train  of  cars  at  the  summit  of  an  inclined  plane, 
leaving  them  to  move  with  dangerous  and  constantly- 
accelerating  velocity;  and  thousands  under  this  motive- 
power,  unrestrained,  renouncing  every  virtue  before  ob- 
sei'ved,  and  pursuing  every  vice  before  deprecated,  rush 
precipitately  to  destruction.  Severing  this  last  bond  that 
holds  the  bark  of  youth  to  its  moorings  in  the  harbor  of 
virtue  and  peace,  is  like  parting  the  cable  of  the  noble 
vessel,  already  careening  and  bounding  before  the  storm, 
and  allowing  it  to  dart  away, like  a  race-horse,  before  the 
gale,  without  pilot,  or  compass,  to  be  stranded  and 
wrecked  in  hopeless  ruin. 

O  then  be  entreated  to  consider  your  exposed  situation 
surrounded  by  so  many  insidious  temptations,  and  with- 
out the  necessarv   defences   of  virtue.     In  select  com- 


TEMPTATIONS    OF    CITY    LIFE.  15 

panionsliips  rc])]acc  tliem  as  far  as  you  can.  Let  thoughts 
of  parents,  absent,  perhaps  now  in  heaven,  keep  you 
back  from  tlie  devious  paths  of  sin.  When  vacillating 
between  claims  of  duty  and  temptation,  let  the  thought 
of  a  departed  mother,  who  once  reproved  your  childish 
follies,  and  forgave  them,  and  commended  you  to  vir- 
tue and  to  God — the  memory  of  her  serene,  affectionate, 
and  regretful  countenance — recall  the  purpose  and  inspire 
the  courage  of  virtue.  One  of  the  finest  and  bravest 
of  the  officers  who  have  lately  fallen  upon  the  embattled 
plains  of  Mexico,  and  one  that  obtained  early  and  distin- 
guished promotion,  while  a  cadet  at  West  Point,  be- 
ing importuned  by  a  high-spirited  and  reckless  compan- 
ion to  drink  WTth  him  the  enchanted  cup,  and  chided  for 
his  cowardly  refusal,  simply  replied,  "My  mother  would 
not  wish  me  to." 

"  Oh  !  in  our  sterner  manhood,  when  no  ray 
Of  earlier  sunshine  glimmers  on  our  way  ; 
When  girt  with  sin,  and  soiTow,  and  the  toil 
Of  cares,  which  tear  the  bosom  that  they  soil  — 
Oh  !  if  there  be  in  Retrospection's  chain 
One  link  that  binds  us  to  duty  again. 
It  is  the  memory  of  a  mother's  love." 

He  that  hallows  such  reminiscences,  confirms  one  of 
the  strongest  bonds  of  a  virtuous  life  ;  he  that  hath  not 
home  virtues  in  his  soul,  and  is  not  moved  by  the  sweet 
concord  of  domestic  affections,  is  "  fit  for  treasons,  strat- 
agems, and  spoils." 

3.  Another  class  of  the  temptations  of  large  cities  arises 
from  a  prevailing  over-estimate  oficealth,  and  fraudulent 
methods  ofhusiness.  Cities  are  the  exchanges  of  nations, 
the  markets  of  the  world.  The  countless  multitudes  of 
merchants,  clerks,  and  porters,  passing  and  repassing  to 
ships,  customhouses,  countinghouses,  and  exchanges,  con- 
tinually remind  us  of  the  numbers,  and  ascendency  of  the 


Id  TEMPTATIONS    OF    CITV    LIFE. 

mercantile  class.  Commercial  influences  must  therefore 
to  a  great  extent  affect  the  social  and  moral  character  of 
a  city.  They  tend  to  foster  an  idolatrous  and  corrupting 
estimate  of  wealth,  and  to  subordinate  the  higher  ends 
of  intellectual  and  moral  culture,  domestic  virtues  and 
happiness,  to  its  acquisition. 

If  the  worship  of  the  world  in  the  devotement  of  su- 
preme regards,  could  have  been  symbolized,  at  different 
periods,  we  should  at  one  time  behold  man  offering  su- 
preme homage  to  Mars ;  at  another,  to  MineiTa,  Apollo, 
or  Ceres ;  at  another,  to  Venus  or  Bacchus  ;  and  at  an- 
other, to  Mammon.  In  a  fair  representation  of  the 
present  comparative  homage  of  the  world,  the  altars  of 
Mammon  would  be  found  to  outnumber  and  surpass  in 
splendor  all  others.  Its  temples  are  reared  and  its 
magnificent  and  imposing  ceremonial  worship  is  enact- 
ed in  the  city.  Thither  the  tribes  of  the  people  go  up 
in  the  engrossing  pursuits  of  wealth,  like  the  ancient 
Hebrews  to  Jerusalem,  and  the  inhabitants  of  Asia  to 
Ephesus,  to  pay  their  homage,  participate  ia  the  so- 
lemnities, and  join  in  the  idolatrous  shouts  going  up 
before  this  gilded  divinity  whom  now  all  Europe  and 
America  worshippeth.  From  the  altar  of  Mammon,  a 
votary  goes  away,  bearing,  as  indelibly  if  not  as  con- 
spicuously, the  marks  of  the  shrine  at  which  he  has 
bowed,  as  from  the  altar  of  Bacchus.  The  delusion  may 
not  surprise  him  into  as  many  vulgar  improprieties,  but 
may  fascinate  him  imperceptibly  into  as  many  fatal  er- 
rors, downright  follies,  and  heinous  crimes.  The  intoxi- 
cation may  not  be  as  violent,  neither  is  it  as  intermit- 
tent;  it  is  incorporated  more  completely  into  the  habit 
of  the  soul,  and  allows  fewer  inten^als  for  sober  reflec- 
tion and  escape.  From  a  regard  for  money  as  a  means 
to  the  advantages  of  life,  such  a  votary  passes  to  a  strange 
and  infatuated   idolatry  for  the  thing  itself;  not  merely 


TRMPTATIOxVS    OP    CITY    LIFE.  17 

in  disproportion  to,  but  without  regard  to  its  uses,  even 
better  pleased  with  accumulated  investments,  without 
the  prospect  or  even  possibility  of  eve]-  using  them;  as  if 

"  The  chief  end  of  man 
Is  to  keep  what  he's  got, 
And  get  what  he  can." 

Intellectual  imbecility,  elevated  to  distinction  by  wealth, 
puts  on  affected  airs,  prates  ignorance,  and  uses  inso- 
lence with  impunity  and  even  applause.  Dark  fraud 
occupies  princely  habitations,  rides  in  rich  livery,  and 
by  gold  wins  its  way  to  any  circle  and  social  advantages. 
Impudent  vice,  shielded  by  the  immunities  of  wealth, 
shines  in  the  elegant  attire  and  circles  of  fashionable  life, 
repelling  the  inquisitiveness  and  scorning  the  censures 
of  virtue.  All  eminent  advantages  and  distinctions  ap- 
pear to  be  conferred  by  riches,  and  society  seems  to 
be  framed  upon  the  principle  of  its  supreme  control. 
By  observation,  contagious  example,  and  the  assimila- 
ting influence  of  daily  pursuits,  youth  is  taught  to  as- 
certain the  value  of  all  things  —  health,  intelligence, 
talents,  and  even  virtue  —  upon  the  list  of  prices  cur- 
rent ;  and  to  piize  acquisitions  and  occasions  as  they 
may  be  converted  into  gold. 

As  money  is  a  representative  of  all  advantages, 
and  answers  almost  all  purposes  —  procuring  fame,  ap- 
peasing conscience,  and  atoning  for  crime,  or  defying  its 
punishment  — he  impeceptibly  becomes  willing  to  subor- 
dinate all  claims  to  its  attainment,  and  to  pursue  it  by 
the  most  available  means,  with  little  or  no  scruple  as  to 
their  character.  Many  make  it  the  supreme  end  ;  and 
others,  raiiking  it  too  high,  repress  proportionably  nobler 
sentiments  and  pursuits  ;  preclude  the  most  exalted  fel- 
lowship and  happiness  of  life  •  and  obscure  the  hopes  of 
immortal  blessedness. 

Avoid  this  over-estimate  of  wealth.     Your  life — its 


13  TEMPTATIONS    OV    CITY    MFK. 

length,  its  liaj^piiicss,  its  uscriiliies!?,  its  Iionorable  fame  — 
docs  not  depend  upon  the  ahi(}ida?ice  of  the  things  you 
possess.  Let  not  its  pursuit  repress  nobler  aims,  soil 
your  charactei",  destroy  your  virtue,  and  degrade  your 
soul  to  an  infcimous  baseness. 

Amid  this  class  of  temptations,  there  is  a  still  gi'eater 
liability  that  your  virtue  will  become  impaired  and  your 
character  tarnished  by  the  vices  of  trade.  The  ex- 
changes of  tlie  country  are  so  limited,  and  their  laws  so 
simple  and  well-defined,  as  to  jDreclude,  to  a  great  ex- 
tent, opportunities  or  temptations  to  dishonesty.  The 
exchanges  of  the  city  on  the  other  hand,  are  so  extensive, 
their  forms  and  circumstances  so  various,  and  their  rela- 
tions so  intricate  and  .subtle,  as  ever  to  present  new  modes, 
opportunides,  and  f  irmidable  temptations  to  fraud.  It 
is  there  we  hear,  as  one  of  the  most  familiar  sounds,  the 
buyer  exclaiming:  *'  It  is  naught,  it  is  naught;"  depre- 
ciating the  merchandise  he  is  purchasing  ;  and  straight- 
way, as  vender,  "  making  his  boast"  in  exti-avagant  and 
sometimes  untruthful  commendation  of  the  same  wares. 
Intense  and  universal  competition  —  taxing  industry,  per- 
severance, prudence,  shrewdness,  and  enterprise  —  con- 
tinually impels  to  the  arts  of  deceit  and  cunning,  to  im- 
probity and  fraud.  The  conscience  is  perpetually  plied 
with  plausible  temptations;  and  instances  of  its  violation 
are  multi])lied,  till  it  becomes  insensate,  and  its  trans- 
gressions are  viewed  with  indiflerence  or  palliation. 
Questions  of  custom  and  expediency  supersede  those  of 
right,  and  the  immutable  laws  of  integrity  are  modified 
to  the  existing  modes  of  business  and  to  public  sentiment. 
Honesty  no  longer  appears  so  rigid,  nor  veracity  so  un- 
prevarieating  a  virtue,  as  it  once  did.  The  bold  and 
prominent  distinctions  of  right  and  wrong  so  shade  into 
each  other  and  fade  away,  as  to  impair  the  hold  of  vir- 


TEMPTATIONS    OP    CITY    LU'E.  19 

tue  upon  the  mind,  alleviate  the  pressure  of  obligation, 
and  facilitate  general  demoralization. 

By  such  influences  young  men  are  liable  to  be  precip- 
itated to  lower  and  yet  lower  arts  of  cunning  and  deceit ; 
availing  themselves  of  false  measures,  false  weights,  and 
innumerable  modes  of  dishonesty  —  till  their  characters, 
formed  in  this  routine  and  friction  of  commercial  frauds, 
*'  like  pebbles  in  a  brook,  are  rounded  into  a  smooth 
uniformity,  in  which  all  the  points  and  angles  of  a  vir- 
tuous singularity  are  lost." 

They  are  afore  prepared  to  become,  by  tempting  oc- 
casions, fraudulent  clerks,  agents,  or  partners  ;  default- 
ers in  corporate  and  public  offices  ;  or  common  thieves, 
counterfeiters,  forgers,  or  burglars  :  for  conscience,  be- 
trayed at  one  point,  is  weakened  at  all.  The  habitual 
violation  of  one  law  renders  easy  and  almost  necessary 
the  violation  of  others. 

Thus  demoralization  flows  into  a  city  through  the  chan- 
nels of  commerce,  and  through  them  also  flows  back  over 
the  country,  assimilating  all  affiliated  professions  and  puv- 
suits  to  the  same  standard  of  morals,  menacing  the  foun- 
dations of  public  virtue  and  the  faith  of  states.  For  what 
can  theories  of  morals  and  religious  professions  avail, 
when  the  public  conscience  is  despoiled  of  its  sensitive- 
ness to  the  distinctions  of  right  and  wrong,  and  its  bar- 
riers against  vice  are  removed  1  As  the  rain-drops,  trick- 
ling down  the  crevices  of  the  mountain,  loosen  its  ada- 
mantine bonds,  and  at  length  cleave  dov/n  in  a  train  of 
ruin  to  the  plain,  great  masses  that  had  defied  the  effacing 
hand  of  human  power,  the  innovations  of  time,  and  the 
storms  of  centuries ;  so  the  hidden  influences  of  fraud, 
perverting  the  conscience,  insidiously  loose  the  founda- 
tions of  civil  institutions,  and  hasten  the  overthrow  of 
cities  and  the  downfall  of  empires. 

You  must  have  been  sensible  of  the  operation  of  these 
2* 


:90  TEMPTATIONS    OF    CITY    LIFE. 

influences  upon  yourself.  Surprised  and  revolted  at  suc- 
cessive disclosures  of  new  and  more  daring  frauds,  you 
have  been  ready  to  doubt  all  men,  and  trust  no  one ;  and 
as  confidence  in  others  was  diminished,  a  sense  of  your 
own  obligations  was  weakened.  Seeinor  innumerable 
wrecks  of  virtue  swept  from  the  positions  you  now  oc- 
cupy, by  these  furtive  and  powerful  currents,  you  have 
been  almost  ready  to  abandon  yourself  to  be  hurried 
along  the  torrent  that  is  bearing  so  many  unresisting  to 
perdition.  You  have  felt  the  supports  of  virtue  giving  way, 
and  the  pressure  of  the  waters  rising  higher  and  higher 
against  you,  threatening  every  moment  to  remove  you 
from  your  balanced  position.  Watch,  then,  against  these 
insidious  influences.  If  you  have  progressed  undiscovered 
along  the  course  of  peculation,  fraud,  and  the  insensation 
of  conscience,  earnestly  strive,  before  it  is  too  late,  to 
regain  that  standing  point  of  virtue  —  a  good  conscience. 
Part  with  its  peace,  its  fellowship,  its  joy,  its  protection, 
for  commercial  advantages,  and  you  part  with  gold  for 
trash,  you  sell  your  birthright  for  a  mess  of  pottage. 

Avoid  the  incipient  violations  of  conscience,  the  alli- 
ances of  iniquitous  trade,  and  the  associations  of  unprin- 
cipled and  dishonest  men.  Never  borrow  of  your  em- 
ployer the  smallest  sum  without  leave;  if  you  borrow 
without  liberty,  you  may  steal ;  if  you  take  a  penny, 
you  may  a  pound  ;  if  you  defraud  for  your  employer,  you 
may  defraud  hhn  ;  and  if  you  deceive  or  equivocate  for 
another,  you  may  for  yourself.  A  loan  for  sums  to  pro- 
cure an  article  of  dress,  or  attend  a  place  of  amusement, 
intended  as  an  anticipation  of  a  salary  perhaps  due  in  a 
few  weeks,  is  often  the  precursor  of  stupendous  frauds, 
scheming  villanies,  and  utter  and  hopeless  ruin.  How- 
ever adroitly  and  secretly  you  may  carry  on  fraud,  sooner 
or  later  you  will  be  confounded  and  covered  with  shame 
by  its  discoveiy.     That  adept  in  villanies  who  could  swin- 


TEMPTATIONS    OP    CITY    LIFE.  21 

die  from  shrewd  merchants,  statesmen,  and  lords,  after 
unavailing  attempts  to  escape,  emaciated,  broken  in  spir- 
it, and  reduced  toward  idiocy  by  debasing  habits,  died 
as  a  fool  dieth  in  Sing-Sing.  Lately  a  young  man  in  a 
neighboring  city  escaped  with  a  large  sum  from  the  bank 
in  which  he  was  employed,  and  crossed  the  ocean,  and 
sought  to  conceal  himself  in  England  and  in  France  un- 
der an  assumed  name;  but  was  arrested  and  brought  back 
to  deplore  the  loss  of  character  tliat  can  never  be  recov- 
ered. So,  sooner  or  later,  will  all  deviations  from  probi- 
ty end. 

Avoid  also  the  occasions  of  fraud  —  extravaerance  in 
dress,  expensive  amusements  and  habits,  and  all  associa- 
tions that  require  more  means  than  you  can  honestly  com- 
mand, and  which  may  tempt  you  to  anticipate  your  salary 
in  borrowing  of  a  friend  or  your  employer.  Approach 
not  a  gambling-board,  and  venture  not  upon  rash  specu- 
lation to  acquire  fortune  without  patient  industry  and  la- 
bor. These  exigencies  search  the  weakness  of  principle. 
And  having  crossed  the  line  of  dishonesty,  a  man  has 
virtually  fallen  :  unfaithful  in  the  least,  he  only  waits  the 
occasion  to  be  unfaithful  in  much.  By  the  yielding  of 
conscience,  the  whole  structure  of  virtuous  character 
will  sooner  or  later  be  precipitated  to  its  downfall,  as  a 
stately  edifice  or  temple  by  the  yielding  or  decay  of  its 
foundation. 

Though  the  trial  by  gold  is  more  searching  and  more 
fatal  than  the  old  trial  by  fire,  you  may  come  out  un- 
scathed. How  grateful  to  oppressed  virtue  the  following 
memorial  of  the  unstained  character  of  a  distinguished 
merchant,  lately  deceased,  after  a  trial  of  more  than  forty 
years,  in  this  city  : — 

"  Resolved,  That  the  chamber  of  commerce  and  merchants  of  New 
York,  representing  the  unanimous  sense  of  their  body,  record  the  death 
of  JoxATHAx  Goodhue,  now  no  more  of  earth,  with  the  sincerest  grief, 
and  with  the  highest  respect  for  his  virtues. 


£S  TEMPTATIONS    Oi     VllY    LIFF. 

"Resolved,  That  as  a  merchant,  his  c:ilcipri:;e,  hU  systematic  atten- 
tion to  business,  his  unvarying  good  faitli  and  fideHty,  his  unspotted 
honor,  and  his  unstained  integrity,  entitle  hina  to  a  lasting  good  name 
in  the  commercial  annals  of  our  country. 

^'Resolved,  That  we  equally  declare  our  high  esteem  for  his  virtues 
as  a  man  —  for  his  kindness  of  heart  —  his  liberality  in  useful  public 
enterprises,  and  his  activity  in  works  of  charity  —  for  his  modesty  — 
and  also  for  his  elevated  Christian  fc-pirit,  and  for  the  unostentatioua 
simplicity  and  blameless  purity  of  his  private  life." 

You,  like  liim,  may  falsify  the  maxim  that  every  man 
has  his  price.  Anu  a  man  that  maintains  his  integrity 
through  the  sore  trials  of  mercantile  life,  is  one  of  the 
most  distinguished  ornaments  and  benefactors  of  the  race. 
Virtue  that  has  never  been  tried  may  be  spurious  ;  en- 
during this  test,  its  genuineness  is  unquestionable. 

4.  Another  class  of  temptationa  arises  from  innumera- 
hle  and  ever-present  examples  of  wickedness,  in  apparent 
impunity  and  triumph. 

Man  is  universally  an  imitative  being  ;  and  this  ten- 
dency is  greatest  in  youth,  and  only  gradually  diminished 
by  advancing  age.  Hence  the  facility  with  which  chil- 
dren are  assimilated  to  the  tastes  and  habits  of  parents, 
and  whole  communities  to  the  succssive  and  ever-varying 
standards  of  fashion.  This  susceptibility  to  the  influence 
of  example,  increased  by  the  according  bias  of  depravity, 
and  appeals  of  passion,  is  addressed  by  a  twofold,  cor- 
rupting excmplilication  of  wickedness. 

The  fii'st  is  individual,  and  is  invested  with  all  the  assimi- 
lating power  of  companionship,  or  attractions  of  personal 
fortune,  rank,  and  prosperity.  A  fellow-boarder  or  clerk  is 
admired,  almost  envied,  by  an  inexperienced  and  virtuous 
youth,  for  his  fine  personal  appearance  and  dress,  his 
knowledore  of  business  and  the  world,  his  brilliant  circles 
of  acquaintance,  his  large  salary  and  prospects  of  wealth. 
At  length,  with  a  sudden  shock  to  his  virtue,  that  model 
youth  is  discovered  to  be  a  desecrator  of  the  sabbath,  a 


TEMPTATIONS    OF    CiTY    LIVE.  23 

contemner  of  veracity,  of  teniperanco,  of  purity,  and  of 
all  relioioii. 

o 

Or  in  some  casual  acquaintance  —  an  employer,  or 
some  man  of  bigli  social  or  political  standing — the  hab- 
its of  vice  are  disclosed.  Surely  if  these  habits  are 
compatible  with  such  fortunate  conditions  of  life ;  if 
they  do  not  at  all  prejudice  reputation,  social  standing, 
civil  promotion,  commercial  prosperity,  and  all  the  gay- 
ety  and  cheer  of  life,  they  can  not  be  very  bad.  They 
can  not  be  very  disrej^utable  or  unsaie,  or  such  re2:)Uta- 
ble,  and  wise,  and  provident  men,  would  not  allow  them. 
He  suspects  himself  of  credulity  and  superstition,  smiles 
at  his  former  ignorance  of  the  world  and  fastidiousness  of 
conscience.  Through  such  examples,  and  the  direct  solici- 
tude and  eludings  of  those  older  or  more  experienced,  with 
some  hesitation  and  reproofs  of  cc^science,  he  resolves 
no  longer  to  be  singular,  and  enters  upon  a  more  liberal 
course  of  life,  doing  as  others  do,  and  if  need  be  hazard- 
ing what  others  hazard. 

As  one  or  two  children  of  precocious  depravity,  by 
the  contagious  sympathy  of  example,  lead  a  whole  com- 
pany of  playmates  into  mischief,  where  alone  none  of 
the  rest  would  have  transgressed  ;  or  as  a  company  of 
young  men  are  betrayed  into  improprieties  or  immorali- 
ties by  the  challenging  example  of  one  more  reckless 
than  the  rest  —  so  in  their  respective  circles  the  multi- 
tudes of  a  city  are  precipitated  in  evil  courses.  Inexpe- 
rienced and  timid  youth  enter  upon  questionable  and 
immoral  courses,  surrounded  and  cheered  on  by  compan- 
ions ;  and  having  learned  to  distrust  the  virtue  of  others, 
they  gradually  surrender  their  own. 

There  is  also  a  social  exemplification  of  wickedness, 
scarcely  less  corrupting,  not  identified  with  individuals, 
but  the  community.  In  a  city,  sin  is  made  familiar  in  al- 
lowed customs,  modes  of  business,  and  amusement,  of 


^4  TEMPTATIONS    OF    CITY    LIFE. 

complex  moral  character;  and  is  exhibited  to  all  in  sim* 
pier  forms,  in  a  magnitude  of  proportions  and  fullness 
of  details  that  it  can  be  nowhere  else.  From  the  so- 
cial character  of  vice,  scarcely  existing  in  solitude,  its 
facilities  for  development  and  corrupting  attractions 
extend  with  an  extending  j^opulation ;  furnishing  the 
resources  in  numbers,  tastes,  and  circumstances,  for  the 
most  effisctive  and  conspii:mous  organization  ;  and  ena- 
bling and  tempting  men  to  be  more  wicked  than  the 
same  population  could  be  scattered,  in  sparse  communi- 
ties. Every  vice,  in  organized  and  portentous  exempli- 
fication, towers  in  conspicuous  and  attractive  eleva- 
tion, before  the  eyes  of  all :  and  like  a  monument 
rising  from  an  eminence  over  a  vast  population,  it  not 
only  arrests  the  attention  of  individuals  with  greater  fa- 
cility, but  the  assimilating  and  corrupting  observation  of 
one  does  not  restrict  the  vision  of  others.  Thousands 
are  corrupted  by  the  same  exhibitions  of  vice,  more  ef- 
fectively and  constantly  represented,  and  attracting  the 
assimilating  observation  of  larger  numbers.  Whichever 
way  you  turn,  vice  is  before  you,  offending  the  eye,  sound- 
ing harshly  upon  the  ear,  and  disturbing  the  sensibilities 
of  the  heart ;  till  by  an  obvious  and  general  law  the  mind 
loses  a  sense  of  its  odiousness.  As,  by  a  long  familiarity 
with  suffering,  the  heart  is  liable  to  become  hardened  — 
so,  by  a  long  familiarity  with  sin,  the  virtuous  sensibilities 
are  blunted.  The  prevalence  of  war,  with  its  ensigns  be- 
fore the  people  perpetually,  in  any  age  or  country,  dimin- 
ishes a  sense  of  its  sinfulness  and  evils.  Where  duelling  is 
commonly  resorted  to,  to  settle  personal  disputes,  its  guilt 
is  almost  lost  siirht  of.  W^here  the  law  of  marriafjr'e  is 
set  aside,  its  violation  is  regarded  as  a  venial  or  no  of- 
fence at  all.  So  imperceptible  but  far-reaching  is  the 
demoralizing  influence  of  prevailing  examples  of  wick- 
edness in  laip^er  comnumities. 


TEMPTATIONS    OF    CITY    LIFE.  26 

The  philosophy  of  the  poet  is  as  applicable  to  commu- 
nities and  classes  as  to  individuals  : — 

"  Vice  is  a  monster  of  such  horrid  mien, 
That  to  be  hated  ueeds  but  to  be  seen; 
Yet  seen  too  oft,  familiar  with  her  face, 
We  soon  endure,  then  pity,  then  embrace." 

Not  only  is  a  horror  of  sin  abated,  but  confidence  in  the 
moral  government  of  God  is  impaired.  The  feet  of  in- 
experienced Youth  well-nigh  slip  ;  he  envies  the  foolish, 
having  no  bands  in  their  death  ;  not  being  in  trouble,  or 
exercise  of  self-denial,  like  other  men;  havingf  all  the 
advantages  of  life,  and  spreading  themselves  like  a  gi-een 
bay-tree.  "  Truly,"  he  says  within  himself,  "  religion  is 
of  no  advantage  ;  I  have  washed  my  hands  in  innocency, 
restrained  my  passions,  and  regarded  the  rights  of  others, 
in  vain  :  I  am  less  prospered  than  the  wicked."  Thus 
temptation,  from  the  difficulty  of  tracing  and  distinguish- 
ing the  consequences  of  sin,  is  greatly  enhanced.  Those 
seen  successful,  triumphant,  and  happy,  are  not  identified 
in  the  subsequent  stages  of  their  progress  to  perdition. 
They  are  like  a  player  personating  successively  different 
characters,  not  identified  as  the  same  man.  The  man 
we  meet,  handcuffed  and  led  to  prison,  does  not  appear 
to  be  the  man  we  saw  the  day  before,  mirthful  over  the 
wine-board.  The  man  we  see  in  the  ward  of  the  prison, 
with  his  striped  jacket,  does  not  seem  like  the  man  who 
a  week  before  was  seen  in  the  best  seat  in  the  theatre, 
shouting  enthusiastically  to  the  progress  of  the  play.  The 
man  that  we  see  ridding  himself  of  the  burden  of  a  mis- 
erable existence  by  suicide,  or  expiating  his  crimes  upon 
the  gallows,  is  not  recognised  as  the  man  who  just  now 
was  boasting  impunity  in  scheming  frauds,  or  in  the  de- 
struction of  the  virtue  of  the  innocent,  and  the  invasion 
of  the  peace  of  families.  The  man  deserted  on  his  death- 
bed, in  despair  crying  for  mercy,  or  wandering  in  mental 


26  TEMPTATiU.NS    OP    CITY    LIFE. 

alienation,  is  not  identified  as  the  man  who  had  been 
hoard  blaspheming  the  name  of  God,  and  imprecating 
curses  upon  his  fellow-men.  The  slippery  places  upon 
which  the  wicked  stand,  ready  to  fall  into  perdition,  are 
by  the  spell  of  the  world  veiled  from  our  sight,  and  we 
are  left  to  admire  and  envy,  when  we  ought  to  abhor  and 
pity.  As  youth  admires  and  envies,  he  is  ready  to  imi- 
tate ;  and  as  by  equivocal  paths  he  reaches  the  course 
of  the  wicked,  it  opens  before  him  a  broad  and  beaten 
path  :  he  tiaces  the  footprints  of  thousands  before  him, 
and  hears  the  sound  of  their  myriad  footfalls,  and  their 
voices  cheering  him  on ;  and  where  he  would  not  ven- 
ture alone,  he  follows  a  multitude  to  do  evil. 

But  remember,  the  numbers  associated  in  an  evil 
course  do  not  render  it  more  proper,  nor  diminish  its 
guilt  and  punishment.  '•  Though  hand  join  in  hand, 
the  wicked  shall  not  go  unpunished."  By  select  com- 
panionship, repression  of  idle  curiosity,  and  laudable 
and  improving  engagements,  you  may  escape  these  in- 
fluences to  a  considerable  extent,  as  one  would  avoid  a 
place  of  contagious  disease,  or  exposure  to  the  night 
air.  "  He  that  walketh  with  wise  men  shall  be  wise,  but 
the  companion  of  fools  shall  be  destroyed."  In  the  prog- 
ress of  your  social  life,  walk  not  in  the  counsel  of  the 
ungodly ;  but  rather  defer  to  the  opinions  and  precedents 
of  those  who  fear  God.     Visit  not  the  resorts  of  triflin<y 

o 
and  profane  men  ;  and  hasten  away  from  the  clubs  and 

companionship  of  scoffers  and  libertines  as  you  would 

flee  the  presence  of  fiends. 

5.  Another  class  of  teynptations  arises  from  innumera- 
hlc  direct  and  concentrated  appeals  to  evil  propensities. 

Susceptibility  to  the  influence  of  temptation  is  in- 
creased by  the  prevailing  excitements  of  city  life.  The 
phlegmatic  are  aroused  to  a  strange  and  unwonted  ac- 


TEMPTATIONS    OF    CITY    LIFE.  27 

tivity  ;  and  the  ardent  consumed  by  the  intensity  of 
their  desires.  The  mingling  heat  of  ever-glowing  pas- 
sions seems  almost  to  develop  itself  in  spontaneous  com- 
bustion ;  and  the  least  friction  of  depraved  example  or 
appeal  may  kindle  and  consume  the  noblest  sttacture  of 
character,  w^ith  its  stately  order,  magnificent  proportions, 
and  rich  mental  furniture.  After  all  undue  passionate 
excitements,  there  is  an  enfeebled  reaction  and  exposed, 
weakness,  which  invites  the  appeals  of  temptation. 

Not  only  does  this  explosive  intensity  of  passion,  fos- 
tered by  artificial  excitements,  render  all  more  suscepti- 
ble to  evil  influences ;  but  there  are  vast  and  endlessly- 
diversified  combinations  and  incentives  to  vice,  in  direct 
appeals  to  every  particular  susceptibility.  No  corner  of 
the  heart  is  unpenetrated  by  temptation ;  no  depravity, 
or  passion,  or  prejudice,  remains  latent  for  want  of  oc- 
casions of  development.  The  traces  of  original  char- 
acter or  early  education  are  drawn  out  to  conspicuous 
prominence,  as  the  invisible  lines  of  indelible  ink  upon 
canvass  when  sjDread  to  the  fire. 

A  feeling  of  intellectual  independence  or  an  undue 
love  of  speculation  is  addressed  hy  tJte  puhlications  and 
insinuating  advocates  of  a  thousand  errors.  Errors  that 
in  the  country,  without  association  or  organization,  speed- 
ily become  extinct  or  inoperative,  here  have  their  preach- 
ers, organs,  and  conventicles.  The  faith  of  a  young  man 
is  already  disturbed  by  practical  neglect  of  religion,  ig- 
norance of  its  evidences,  protracted  vagrancy  of  religious 
reflections,  or  by  incipient  habits  of  vice.  By  special  in- 
vitation he  hears  some  ne^v  apostle  of  error,  some  philo- 
sophical lecturer,  examines  some  plausible  book  or  tract, 
or  is  captivated  by  the  conversation  of  a  friend,  or  fellow- 
boarder,  or  clerk,  who  has  examined  the  latest  theory  or 
heard  its  champion.  His  faith  in  the  religion  of  his  fathers 
is  disturbed.  ( Hving  up  the  habit  of  attending  any  par- 
3 


28  TEMPTATIONS    OF    CITV    LIFE. 

ticular  place  of  worship,  he  giaclually  neglects  attend- 
ing anywhere.  He  enters  such  a  course  of  life  as  diverts 
him  more  and  more  from  proper  habits,  and  ultimately 
from  a  religious  profession  and  life.  What  might  have 
remained  an  inoperative  doubt  amid  the  scenes  of  home 
and  rural  life,  is  developed  in  avowed,  and  proselyting, 
and  practical  infidelity. 

A  love  of  the  excitement  of  games  of  hazard  and  chance 
is  met  hy  all  the  available  modes  of  gambling  —  from  the 
billiard-saloon,  with  the  hazard  of  the  piice  of  the  game, 
or  the  next  bottle  of  wine,  to  the  dark  and  silent  gam- 
bling-hell, where  thousands  change  hands  in  an  evening. 
In  guarded,  but  understood  language,  their  advertise- 
ments are  in  the  journals ;  and  their  emissaries  are 
abroad,  to  entrap  the  unwary,  and  multiply  patrons  and 
victims.  The  splendid  entertainment,  abundance  of  wine, 
elegant  apartments,  polite  and  attentive  host,  select  com- 
pany, and  full  bank,  fascinate  the  young  adventurer.  The 
excitement  of  the  game  itself,  greatly  increased  by  the 
hazard  and  hope  of  gain,  often  transports  to  a  reckless- 
ness bordering  on  desperation.  Everything  is  staked  ; 
loans  are  made,  or  funds  obtained  under  false  pretences  ; 
and  at  length  frauds  are  committed. 

A  passion  that  might  never  be  discovered  in  a  small 
community,  is  here  developed,  enslaving  and  ruining  its 
unsuspecting  votary.  He  follows  up  the  sinful  waste  of 
time  :  all  good  habits  are  abandoned  ;  all  vice  is  springing 
up  as  in  a  hot-bed.  If  he  gain  by  gambling  and  lotteries, 
he  has  lost  the  habits  and  virtue  that  mis:ht  enable  him  to 
keep  it  or  put  it  to  any  valuable  use.  From  the  fullest  in- 
vestigations in  all  our  cities,  from  able  and  well-authenti- 
cated reports,  the  gambler  sooner  or  later  loses  character 
fortune,  and  happiness,  and  goes  to  his  grave  covered 
with  infamy.  Prizes  from  the  lottery  or  gambling-board 
are  usually  passports  to  perdition. 


TEMPTATIONS    OV    CITY    LIB'E.  29 

Taste  for  dress  is  ajjpealetl  to  almost  weekly  by  a  new 
table  of  fashions.  A  vain  young  man  from  the  country 
soon  becomes  aslianied  of  his  ill-fitting  or  partially-worn 
trarments,  and  imagines  that  true  manliness  and  social 
standing  depend  upon  the  fit  of  his  coat,  the  style  of  his 
hat,  or  the  shape  of  his  boots.  The  whole  of  a  small  sal- 
ary, not  required  for  his  board-bill,  and  often  what  is  due 
and  has  been  promised  for  that,  is  spent  with  increasing 
recklessness  upon  the  decoration  of  his  person.  It  is  an 
event  of  perhaps  weekly  occurrence  in  this  city,  that 
yr.ung  men  arc  betrayed  into  a  course  of  dishonesty  by 
this  weakness  ;  and.  an  observed  disparity  between  a 
style  of  dress  and  salary  generally  awakens  suspicions 
of  virtue. 

Uudae  relish  for  iJic  luxuries  of  the  tahle  is  catered  to 
by  the  productions  of  all  climes  served  upon  the  most  ap- 
proved methods  of  the  culinary  art,  and  at  all  hours  of 
the  night  and  day.  "  Restaurants,"  "  cafes,"  "  refecto- 
ries," and  "  oyster-saloons,"  in  every  grade  of  meanness  or 
respectability  and  splendor,  are  found  on  almost  every 
corner  of  the  streets.  The  young  man  passes  twenty  in 
s:oin'j:  from  his  lodcrinirs  to  his  business  :  and  one  perhaps 
is  opened  at  the  next  door,  or  in  the  same  building  in 
which  he  is  employed.  Visiting  this  occasionally,  the 
plainer  fare  of  the  boarding-house  becomes  insipid  ;  he 
pampers  his  appetite  by  frequent  and  irregular  visits  ; 
and  at  length  he  becomes  a  miserable  dyspeptic,  a  be- 
sotted epicure,  and  is  devoted  to  all  sensual  excesses  : — 

"  'Tis  the  inferior  appetites  entlirall 
The  man,  and  quench  thti  immortal  light  within  him ; 
The  senses  take  the  soul  an  easy  prey, 
An'I  sink  the  imprisoned  spirit  into  bnito." 

Appetite  for  ardent  spirits  is  appealed  to  from  scores 
of  splendid  saloons  and  low  porter-houses.  The  devotee 
of  the  cup  has  no  trouble,  as  in  the  country,  to  keep  his 


30  TEMPTATIONS    OF    ClTi'    LIFE/ 

sideboard  .supplied  witli  llio  choicest  liquors.  They  aref 
sold  in  a  hundred  places  witliin  as  many  rods,  and  he  can,- 
by  turning-  a  corner,  or  walking  a  few  blocks,  replenish 
his  stores  or  obtain  a  single  glass.  These  places,  made 
attractive  by  fine  paintings,  music,  and  diversified  enter- 
tainments of  Avit,  and  soiif^,  aud  dance,  have  introduced 
so  many  upon  the  broad  road  to  ruin,  that  they  are  rec- 
ognised as  the  porticoes  oi' perdition.  Those  who  often 
go  there,  will  never  return  to  a  lil'e  of  virtue,  and  bo 
known  among  the  circles  of  the  wise  and  good. 

Jrhmdrcds  of  ahodes  of  infamy  arc  opened  throughout 
the  city,  appealing  to  another  class  of  passions  ;  their 
hired  emissaries  are  abroad  in  the  city  and  country,  to 
decoy  the  unwary  and  the  friendless.  Directories  and 
cards  are  secretly  distributed  in  ofiices,  places  of  busi- 
ness, and  to  strangers  as  they  reach  the  city.  Placards 
along  the  streets,  and  advertisements  in  the  journals,  as- 
sure the  passionate  and  adventurous  youth  that  crime 
and  villany  may  be  pursued  at  reduced  hazards.  And 
fascinatincr  but  fallen  women  wait  at  the  corners  of  the 
streets,  and  with  honeyed  words  make  the  overtures  of 
damning  sin.  A  young  man  void  of  understanding  fol- 
lows to  the  ch timbers  of  death.  As  the  leprosy  of  this 
vice  touches  his  character,  all  virtues  forsake  and  all  vices 
enter  the  soul : — 

"  Fugiunt  pudoir,  verumque,  fidesqiie  ; 
In  quorum  subeunt  locum,  IVaudes,  doliciue,  insidiaequc." 

He  shall  wear  the  scars  upon  his  soul  as  a  man  maimed 
by  the  loss  of  limb  or  eye,  or  deep  gash  upon  his  body, 
to  the  grave.  No  atonement  can  remove  the  temporal 
consequences  ;  they  will  follow  and  beset  his  path,  darken 
his  destiny,  and  still  poise  heavier  bolts  of  wrath  at  his 
guilty  head.  His  careless  levity  shall  be  superseded  by 
remorse  and  anguish,  and  — 


TEMPTATinxS    OV    CITY    LTPE.  31 


-"fierce  llcpcntance  real 


Her  snaky  crest ;  and  quick-retiiriiiny  pangs 
Shoot  through  tlie  conscious  heart." 

From  tlie  dark  hour  of  peuitciitial  anguish,  crying  to 
Heaven  for  the  pardon  of  his  sins  ;  or  from  the  bitter 
experience  of  impaired  domestic  confidence  and  fellow- 
ship, and  awakened  jealousy,  banishing  peace  and  hap- 
piness from  the  domestic  hearth;  or  from  a  remorseful 
deathbed,  haunted  by  the  memory  of  follies  and  crimes, 
and  unatonod  wrongs  inflicted  upon  the  innocent,  or 
perpetuated  and  sealed  upon  the  fallen,  and  of  the  suf 
fering  of  bleeding  kindred  hearts  ;  or  from  the  judgment 
when  the  heavens  shall  reveal  his  concealed  profligacies 
seen  by  myriads  of  bright  eyes  shining  from  their  canopy, 
and  the  earth  speaking  from  her  every  unsuspected  re- 
treat, and  every  chamber  of  darkness  shall  rise  up  against 
him  and  accuse  him  ;  he  will  view  his  infatuation  in  bar- 
teiing  true  temporal  and  eternal  well-being  —  the  appro- 
bation of  earth  and  Heaven  —  the  delusive  pleasures  of 
sin, with  amazement  and  unutterable  angruish. 

6.  Another  das  s  of  temptations  arises  in  large  communi- 
ties from  the  ready  concealment  of  cliaracter  and  conduct. 
A  person  is  recognised  when  standing  in  a  field  or  high- 
way alone,  or  surrounded  by  a  few  individuals;  but  is 
unobserved  ia  ths  crowded  thoroughfares,  markets,  or 
exchanges  of  the  city,  though  jostled  by  a  thousand  el- 
bows, and  seen  by  a  thousand  eyes  ;  as  among  the  myriad 
pebbles  on  the  seashore,  or  leaves  of  the  forc.>t,  a  single 
one  is  scarcely  distinguished. 

A  moral  twilight  rests  witli  ample  folds  over  a  city,  so 
that  character  and  conduct  that  would  be  known  and 
marked  in  a  sparse  community,  pass  undistinguished  and 
are  often  unknown  in  the  most  limited  circle  of  daily 
association.  Multitudes  walk  under  various  disguises 
of  concealment  or   hypocrisy;    hiding  themselves  from 


32  TEMPTATIONS    O  T    CiTV    LIFE. 

their  kindred  and  their  race,  from  ihcir  shame  and  de- 
served punishment.  Cities  arc  the  world's  chambers  of 
darkness  —  its  assignation  places  of  wickedness  and  crime. 
The  depraved  and  the  designing  flack  to  them  from  ev- 
ery part  of  the  land  and  the  globe,  to  consummate  anct 
practise  their  villanies  unknown  and  unsuspected .  Often 
they  pass  as  distinguished  gentlemen,  with  civic  ur  milita- 
ry titles,  bearing  honorable  letters  of  commendation, 
lodo-inof  at  the  best  hotels,  and  insinuatinGf  tliemselves  into 
the  best  families  and  social  circles.  They  appear  in  pub- 
lic places,  and  promenade  the  streets  with  airs  and  dress 
of  the  hicjhest  standint^f,  undistiniruished  while  concertina 
plans  of  robbery  and  villany,  and  in  open  day  marking 
the  houses  they  will  rob  or  burn,  and  tlie  victims  they 
v/ill  defraud  or  betray.  Concealed  from  the  eye  of  the 
law  and  of  public  sentiment,  they  prosecute  their  infernal 
schemes,  dififusino:  vice  and  crime  far  and  near,  like  the 
mud-monsters  of  the  ocean  diving  into  its  miry  beds,  and 
stirring  up  all  the  filthy  sediment  accumulated  there  by 
the  deposites  of  centuries,  and  discoloring  the  sea  far 
around  by  their  ponderous  but  concealed  movements. 
In  the  country,  the  approach  of  evil  is  like  that  of  a  mur- 
derer in  an  open  field  :  the  approach  is  seen,  and  the 
blow  may  be  parried.  In  the  city,  it  is  insidious,  like  the 
attack  of  an  assassin  at  night,  or  lurking  in  ambush  :  the 
thrusts  and  j^asses  are  unseen  and  unparried,  and  the 
shots  startle  only  as  they  wound. 

Others,  from  the  adjacent  country  and  more  distant 
towns,  known  as  reputable  citizens,  upon  the  pretence 
of  paying  a  visit  to  relatives,  or  some  mission  of  busi- 
ness, resort  to  the  city  to  indulge  in  a  period  of  moral 
abandonment  and  dissipation.  If  the  light  of  scrutini- 
zing observation  could  suddenly  pervade  the  city  as  it 
does  the  sparse  settlements  of  the  country,  how  many 
would  he  disturbed  nnd  driven  from  the  concealed  haunts 


TEMPTATIONS    OP    CITY    LIFK.  33 

of  vice,  as  bats  from  their  retreats  when  the  light  of  day  is 
let  in  npon  them  by  tearing  down  dilapidated  buildings  ! 

The  same  circumstances  that  conceal  the  deeds  of 
monsters  of  iniquity  and  other  hyjDocrites,  facilitate  and 
abet  all  incipient  vice  or  fraud.  By  abating  the  feeling 
of  necessary  accountability  to  fellow-men,  they  remove 
an  essential  condition  of  virtue.  Man  was  formed  to  be 
answerable  to  his  parents,  to  his  superiors  in  judgment, 
and  to  the  public  sentiment;  and  he  walks  before  them 
with  a  more  sensible  circumspection  than  before  the  Di- 
vine Omniscience.  Next  to  the  fear  of  God,  this  regard, 
for  the  opinions  of  friends  and  fellow-men  is  adapted  to 
repress  sin  and  foster  virtue. 

In  the  exposed  life  of  sparse  communities,  this  prin- 
ciple operates  with  its  legitimate  force  ;  habits  become 
generally  known  ;  public  sentiment  acts  with  facility 
and  pointed  discrimination ;  and  the  character  can  not 
easily  rise  above  the  moral  elevation  of  the  life.  But 
in  the  city,  a  man  may  escape  this  amenable  relation. 
Public  censure  —  feeble  enough  when  unembarrassed 
amid  the  obvious  characters  and  relations  of  rural  life  — 
is  comparatively  impotent  in  a  great  community,  from  a 
want  of  power  of  discrimination  and  concentration.  We 
can  no  more  direct  it  steadily  and  effectively  against  in- 
dividual sinners,  through  the  disguises  and  moveable  re- 
lations of  city  life,  than  concentrate  the  rays  of  the  sun 
through  a  lens  perpetually  disturbed  by  tremulous  and 
irregular  motions,  so  as  to  kindle  a  combustible  sub- 
stance. There  is  always  sufficient  apparently  respecta- 
ble companionship  to  gainsay  and  reverse  its  more  righ- 
teous decisions  —  to  shield  the  wicked  man  from  the  un- 
certain though  indignant  rebukes  of  virtue.  A  large 
portion  of  this  reputable  companionship,  ignorant  of  real 
character  and  crimes,  by  recognising  him  on  'change  or 
in  the  family  circle,  endorse  his  character;   and  others, 


34  TKMPTATIONS    OF    CITY    LITE. 

knowing  his  real  character,  are  yet  coerced  to  passing 
respect,  from  his  standing  before  the  community,  and  his 
alliance  with  truly  virtuous  persons.  Thus,  by  changing 
names,  boarding-houses, employers, associations,  and  man- 
ner of  dress,  he  may  with  apparent  impunity  for  a  long 
period  triumph  over  law  and  public  sentiment,  and  con- 
tinue to  share  the  reputation  and  temporal  advantages  of 
virtue. 

As  the  consequences  of  sin  are  seldom  immediately 
developed,  or  recognised  as  a  visitation  of  punishment, 
they  are  not  feared  by  those  whose  faith  looks  not  be- 
yond human  tribunals  and  the  grave.  In  a  natural  athe- 
ism, youth  has  already  said,  "  God  does  not  see  through 
the  dark — he  does  not  know."  If,  no\v%  his  sabbath 
desecration,  frauds,  and  profligacy,  arc  unknown  to  pa- 
rents, and  to  all  he  respects  or  loves,  and  he  suffers  noth- 
ing in  his  reputation  and  social  standing  by  pursuing 
them,  all  effectual  restraints  are  removed.  Thus  all  errors, 
vices,  and  frauds,  progress  unknown  and  unrebuked,  till 
they  are  matured  in  apostates  and  monsters  of  depravity. 

A  young  gentleman  of  one  of  the  southern  states  — 
of  distinguished  connexions,  placed  in  this  city  as  a 
member  of  one  of  our  literary  institutions,  and  under 
the  care  of  a  religious  family  —  concealed  his  dissolute 
habits  to  such  an  extent,  that  his  father  hardly  suspect- 
ed his  evil  course  till  near  the  close  of  the  proposed 
term  of  his  residence  at  the  north,  when  it  appeared  that 
he  had  expended  about  twelve  thousand  dollars  in  the  cir- 
cles of  dissipation  ;  had  been  reduced  to  a  condition  of 
extreme  profligacy  and  wretchedness;  and  been  prevent- 
ed from  committing  suicide  only  by  tlie  timely  interfe- 
rence of  his  landlord  to  loosen  the  fatal  knot  already  ad- 
justed to  his  neck.  Now  all  this  was  known  to  none  or 
few  in  the  city  for  whom  this  abandoned  youth  particu- 
larly cared,  and  will  scarcely  affect  his  reputation  in  his 


TEMPTATIONS    OF    CITY    LIFE.  35 

native  state,  and  among  his  honorable  family  connexions. 
The  most  they  may  ever  know  is,  that  their  spirited 
nephew  or  cousin  was  a  little  wild,  rather  gay,  and  spent 
too  much  money  while  in  New  York. 

Such  concealment  and  impunity  are  promised  to  all 
classes,  to  every  sinful  propensity,  increasing  the  power 
of  every  temptation,  and  giving  new  imjDulse  to  evil 
passion  and  purpose.  In  its  disguised  activity,  gayety, 
and  unrestrained  license,  a  city  is  one  vast  masquerade 
entertainment.  Through  its  spacious  avenues,  gardens, 
and  parks  —  its  splendid  saloons  and  halls  of  amusement 
—  thronging  multitudes  pass  and  repass,  unknowing  and 
unknown,  like  those  in  the  gay  dance  ;  and  often  the  at- 
titudes, airs,  and  looks  assumed,  exhibit  a  degree  of  wan- 
tonness, or  want  of  circumspection,  that  are  preliminary 
to,  and  abet  every  course  of  vice.  They  are  reduced  to 
the  delusion  of  a  twofold  atheism :  the  darkness  of  de- 
pravity removes  a  restraining  sense  of  the  Divine  pres- 
ence J  the  concealment  of  city  life,  of  the  presence  and 
fear  of  fellow-men. 

Against  this  array  of  influences,  nothing  can  save  you 
but  virtue  enshrined  in  your  hearts  —  a  deep  and  abiding 
conviction  of  God's  omniscience  —  that  he  sees  through 
the  dark  cloud,  the  shadows  of  the  night,  the  concealments 
of  bolts  and  bars,  and  complicated  precautions  —  and  that 
soon  every  secret  fault,  as  well  as  public  act,  shall  meet 
the  fearful  award  of  a  final  judgment. 

Thus  tempting  and  hostile  influences  hover  over  the 
crowded  thoroughfares  of  city  life  in  myriad  invisible 
forms,  as  the  legions  of  spiritual  forces  discovered  to  the 
eyes  of  the  prophet  over  the  mountains  of  Israel.  They 
infest  the  path  of  youth,  as  sharks  follow  a  navy,  or 
ravens  an  army  before  a  battle.  They  sometimes  trans- 
form themstdves  into  angels  of  light ;  and  vice  is  present- 


36  TEMVTATIONS    OF    CITY    LIFE. 

ed  in  the  garb  of  innocence,  and  invested  with  adventi- 
tious charms.  It  dazzles  through  the  eye  in  voluptuous 
aspects  ;  charms  and  captivates  through  the  ear  in  soft 
strains  of  music  ;  woos  through  the  goi'geous  images  of 
the  imagination  ;  entices  through  engaging  companion- 
ship ;   and  wins  and  allures  by  fashion. 

The  incitements  of  passion  are  always  present ;  the 
objects  of  j^assion  always  available  ;  and  the  conceal- 
ments of  transgression  always  ready  —  imparting  to  all 
temptations  inconceivable  facilities,  address,  and  power. 
From  their  formidable  character,  it  is  amazing  that  so 
many  parents  in  the  country  are  v/illing  to  subject  their 
sons  to  them,  and  that  so  many  young  men  eagerly  and 
lightly  rush  into  their  midst.  Considering  the  eagerness 
of  competitors,  the  small  number  that  succeed,  the  vast 
majority  that  fail  —  many  of  them  signally  and  hopelessly 
—  the  thronging  population  of  youth  appear  as  the  part- 
ners to  a  game,  waiting  with  intense  anxiety  and  expec- 
tation the  revolutions  of  the  wheel  of  forlune  in  its  va- 
rious, complicated,  and  subordinate  movements.  How 
few  are  enriched  at  this  bewitching  game  !  how  many 
are  beggared  of  money,  character,  peace,  and  hope  ! 
And  yet  the  existence  of  a  hriUiant  chance  —  a  splendid 
fossihiUty  —  fascinates  and  misleads.  One  of  hundreds 
of  thousands  may  draw  the  prize  of  its  greatest  affluence 
and  distinction  ;  a  few  others  of  the  jostling  and  changing 
crowd  its  secondary  fortunes;  and  the  rest  are  doomed 
to  various  disappointments.  And  yet  the  idea  of  esca- 
ping the  drudgery  of  agricultural  oi*  mechanical  employ- 
ments, of  obtaining  an  imaginary  elevation  in  social  stand- 
ing, and  the  distant  but  dazzling  possibility,  attract,  de- 
lude, and  betray  tens  of  thousands. 

Says  Rev.  James  Harper,  of  Scotland,  in  a  lecture  to 
young  men  :  "  SomewluM-e  about  twenty  years  ago,  six 
lads,  my  informant  one  of  the  number,  natives  of  one  of 


TEMPTATIONS    OP    CITY    LIFE.  37 

the  northern  counties  of  England,  mutnal  acquaintances 
and  similarly  educated,  went  to  London  about  the  same 
time,  to  be  employed  in  different  branches  of  business. 
One  of  the  five  went  to  the  metropolis  beloved  for  his 
gentle,  generous  spirit,  was  remarked  by  his  associates 
for  his  religious  impressions,  and  during  a  length  of  time 
was  exemplary  for  his  attention  to  the  duties  of  the  sab- 
bath. Jolting  on  the  Lord's  day  was  the  first  decided 
step  of  defection,  soon  followed  by  gambling  and  every 
evil  v/ork  ;  next  came  bankruptcy  and  total  destitution  ; 
his  life  was,  last  of  all.  led  in  the  streets;  shunned  by  his 
former  companions,  he  grew  as  callous  as  he  was  degra- 
ded, and  atlenQ:th  souoht  and  found  an  asvlum  in  a  Lon- 
don  workhouse,  where  he  died  from  exhaustion  and  dis- 
ease ten  days  after  his  admission. 

"Another,  of  whose  serious  character  as  favorable  if 
not  higher  hopes  were  entertained,  fell  before  the  same 
temptations,  —  married,  —  lived  expensively,  —  ran  into 
debt;  under  the  pressure  of  his  difficulties  robbed  a  gen- 
erous master;  fled  to  America,  where  he  gave  himself 
up  to  brutal  intemperance,  and  soon  died  the  victim  of 
wretchedness  and  vice. 

*'  A  third,  losing  character  and  subsistence  by  a  simi- 
lar course,  poisoned  himself  in  despair. 

"  The  fourth  was  a  young  man  of  high  talents  and  cul- 
tivated mind,  a  solicitor  by  profession,  with  very  flatter- 
ing prospects.  Sabbath-breaking,  gaming,  intemperance, 
with  their  usual  train  of  bankruptcy,  marked  his  course. 
He  died  of  want,  and  his  famished  corpse  was  found  in 
the  night  on  the  steps  of  a  house  in  Islington. 

"  The  history  of  the  fifth  is  a  repetition  of  the  tragic 
tale.  Sabbath-profanation  was  followed  by  dissipated 
habits.  He  committed  the  crime  of  seduction;  fled  with 
his  victim ;  exhausted  his  means  of  living ;  having  reached 
ix  town  in  the  north  of  Scotland,  he  drank  to  excess  to 


38  TEMPTATIONS    OF    CITV    LIFE. 

drown  his  misery,  and  went  and  shot  liimself  in  lils  bed. 
*And  here,'  said  the  narrator,  *  am  T,  of  the  six  alone  re- 
maining, to  tell  the  story  of  their  fall.'  And  he  ascribed 
his  own  preservation,  under  God,  to  the  alarm  which 
smote  him  when  his  early  associates  first  proposed  to 
him  to  pass  part  of  their  Sundays  in  pleasure,  and  to  the 
reverence  which  he  sedulously  cultivated  for  the  Lord's 
day  and  the  public  ordinances  of  religion." 

It  has  been  estimated  that  not  one  in  ten  attempting  bu- 
siness in  our  large  cities,  and  not  one  in  a  hundred  com- 
mencino-  as  clerks,  have  succeeded.  Their  failure  has 
been  variously  disreputable  or  ignominious,  and  often  fol- 
lowed by  a  broken  spirit,  an  indolent,  reckless,  dissipated, 
or  criminal  life,  pursued  in  vagrancy  in  different  parts  of 
the  country,  and  ended  in  poorhouses  and  prisons,  by  sui- 
cide, or  on  the  gallows.  But  fev/  entering  this  furnace 
come  out  pure  gold  —  vessels  of  honor:  many  are  re- 
duced to  dross,  to  refuse  staff,  to  be  cast  out  and  trodden 
under  foot  of  society. 

A  citij  is  a  hattle-Jidd  hi  I'ifc's  campaign.  Skirmishes 
with  evil,  and  hostile  encounters  are  inevitable  every- 
where ;  but  temptations  press  harder  and  with  more  vari- 
ous appliances;  and  the  warfare  of  human  life  rises  to  its 
intensest  moral  conflicts  in  a  large  community.  There 
virtue  is  maintained  only  through  conflicts  and  victories. 
If  triumphant,  you  will  look  back  upon  the  first  adven- 
tures, and  subsequent  temj)tations  and  hazards  of  city 
life,  as  a  soldier  returned  victorious  from  a  long  cam- 
paign, in  which  many  hard  battles  have  been  fought,  and 
many  noble  comrades  have  fallen  by  his  side — himself 
bearing  in  his  scars  evidences  of  desperate  encounters 
and  narrow  escapes.  AVhen  rejoicing  in  the  spoils  of 
victory  —  reviewing  the  perils  and  sacrifices  through 
which  they  have  been  attained  —  you  may  be  led  to 
exclaim  with   Pvrrluis.  nftei-  n  victory  over  the  Romans 


TLMPTA  I'iOA.S    OF    CITY    LIFE,  30 

-vvliicli  cost  him  llu-!  llowcr  of  his  army  :  '<  Another  such 
victory,  and  I  am  uiiJonc  !"  Tlio  hazard;:;  to  mortal  life 
were  not  greater  in  the  memoiahle  battles  of  Trafalgar 
or  Waterloo,  or  in  the  late  >'jcvcie  engagements  at  Palo 
Alto,  Buena  Arista,  or  Cerro  Gordo,  tlian  those  that  con- 
tinually beset  the  virtue  of  young  men  seeking  their 
home  and  fortune  in  cities.  TL'ey  are  marked  like  bat- 
tle-fields and  the  march  of  a  retreating  and  slaughtered 
army,  by  the  traces  of  despei"ate  conflicts,  and  heaps  of 
the  slain  and  the  dying.  But,  girded  with  the  panoply  of 
Christian  virtue,  you  may  withstand  the  fiercest  assaults, 
and  quench  the  fiery  darts  of  temptation,  and  stand  erect 
and  unscathed,  where  multitudes  are  -wounded  and  fallino: 
around  you. 

A  city  is  tlic  most  stormy  and  daiigcrous  cape  that 
is  doubled  in  tJie  voyage  of  Tfc  :  it  is  swept  by  tempests, 
beset  with  sunken  reefs,  and  strewn  with  noble  wrecks 
of  youth  and  fortune  !  How  many  splendid  barks  here 
struggle  against  adverse  currents  and  winds,  waiting  for 
some  auspicious  breeze  to  enable  them  to  turn  this  point 
and  make  their  destined,  haven !  How  many  of  them 
■will  be  wrecked  without  ever  entering  upon  any  new 
road  of  the  sea !  How  various  the  fortunes  which  will 
attend  the  voyages  of  those  who  now  seem  moving  be- 
fore prosperous  gales  !  Some  will  bo  wrecked  on  re- 
mote shores,  or  sunk  in  distant  w^aters. 

But,  observing  the  lighthouses  that  gleam  over  the 
dark  waters,  and  point  out  the  safe  roads  of  the  sea; 
marking  well  the  compass,  to  remind  you  of  the  course 
you  are  sailing  ;  searching  the  chart  for  hidden  rocks  ; 
standing  off  from  perilous  shoals;  steering  wide  of  reefs 
on  which  hang  shattered  wrecks ;  running  in  upon  dan- 
gerous shores  with  ship  all  manned,  wheel  in  hand,  and 
lead  constantly  sounding;  and  casting  your  anchor  when 
tempests  are  rising  —  you^vU]  outride  every  storm  ;  with- 


40  TIIMPTATIOXS    OP    CITl'    LIFE. 

stand  tlie  currents  that  would  hurry  you  into  the  gulT- 
stream  of  sinful  pleasures,  and  the  eddies  that  would  sink 
you  in  the  deep  waters  of  infidelity;  escape  being  borne 
away  by  the  gusts  of  passion,  or  swallowed  up  in  the 
maelstrom  of  profligacy  and  ruin ;  and  make  safely  and 
prosperously  the  voyage  of  life. 

Liifc  in  a  city  is  the  most  daiigerous  portion  of  its  jour' 
ney.     It  lies  through 

"  a  Avildcring  maze, 


Where  Sin  bath  tracked  ten  thousand  ways, 

Her  victims  to  ensnare  ; 
All  broad,  and  windinjr,  r.nd  aslope, 
All  tempting  with  peiiKlious  liope. 

All  ending  iu  despair!"'  — 

and  no  traveller  escapes  in  safety  without  vigilantly 
watching  against  the  perils  that  lurk  on  every  hand.  It 
is  swept  by  blasts  more  pestilent  than  the  sirocco,  more 
desolating  and  terrible  than  the  tornado.  A  pestiferous 
atmosphere  broods  over  it,  imperceptibly  enervating  the 
moral  sense,  paling  the  cheek  and  obstructing  tlie  respi- 
ration of  virtue.  It  is  like  some  ancient  roads  lying 
through  marshy  I'egions,  Vv'here  whole  armies  have  per- 
ished in  concealed  bogs.  How  many  thousands  enter 
here  and  disappear,  leaving  no  memorials  to  implore  the 
passing  tribute  of  a  sigh  over  their  ruin  !  It  is  like  a 
mountain-pass,  where  bones  of  tlie  slain  lie  scattered 
around,  and  banditti  of  robbers  lurk  to  destroy  the  un- 
wary traveller. 

But  even  from  the  dark  mazes  and  jierilous  labyrinths 
of  a  modern  Sodom  — 

"  One  bumble  path,  that  never  bends, 
NaiTow,  and  rough,  and  steep  ascends"  — 

to  the  gates  of  paradise  —  the  path  of  safety,  success,  and 
eternal  life  !  Seek  that  path  while  yet  the  hope  and 
promise  of  youth  remain  :  — 


TEMPTAtioNS  OP  CITY   [.rrn.  41 

"  Come  while  the  morning-  of  thy  life  is  hrig-htcst, 

Thou  youthful  wanderer  in  a  flowery  nia^c  ; 
Come  while  the  restless  heart  is  bounding  lightest, 

And  Joy's  pure  sunbeams  tremble  in  thy  ways  ; 
Come  while  sweet  thoughts  like  summer  buds  unfolding- 

Waken  rich  feelmgs  in  the  careless  breast  — 
While  yet  thy  hand  the  ephemeral  wreath  is  holding, 

Come  and  secure  interminable  rest. 

"  Soon  will  the  freshness  of  thy  days  be  over. 

And  thy  free  buoj-aney  of  spirit  flown  ; 
Pleasure  will  fold  her  wing  —  and  friend  and  lover 

Will  to  the  embraces  of  the  worm  have  gone. 
They  that  now  bless  thee  will  have  passed  for  ever; 

Theu'  looks  of  kindness  will  be  lost  to  thee  : 
Thou  wilt  need  balm  to  heal  thy  spirit's  fever, 

As  thy  sick  heart  broods  over  years  to  be  ! 

'  Come  while  the  morning  of  thy  life  is  glowing. 

Ere  the  dim  phantoms  thou  art  chasing,  die — • 
Ere  the  gay  spell  which  earth  is  round  thee  throwing, 

Fades  like  the  crimson  from  a  sunset  sky. 
Life  Is  but  shadows  —  save  a  pi-omise  given 

Which  lights  up  soiTOW  with  a  fadeless  ray  : 
Oh,  touch  the  sceptre  —  win  a  hope  in  heaven  ; 

Come,  turn  thy  spirit  from  the  world  away  ! 

"  Then  will  the  crosses  of  this  brief  existence 
Seem  airy  nothings  to  thine  ardent  soul ; 
And,  shining  brightlj'  in  the  forward  distance, 

Will  of  thy  patient  race  appear  the  goal. 
Home  of  the  weary  !  where  in  peace  reposing, 

The  spirit  Imgers  in  unclouded  bliss, 
Though  o'er  its  dust  the  curtained  grave  is  closing, 
Who  would  not  early  choose  a  lot  like  this  ?" 

WlLI.13  Gaylokd  Clabk. 


THE     END. 


TRACTS  EOR  THE  PEOPLE. 

SECOND    SERIES. 

♦*  The  Inheritance  of  American  Citizens.''^ 

*' JL  Plea  for  Popular  Education.'''' 

"  The  Relations  of  Popular  Liberty  to  Constitutional  GoV" 
ernment.^^ 

'*  The  Relations  of  Legislation  to  Social  and  Moral  Reforms" 

^''Divine  Authority  of  Christianity.^^ 

"  The  Conservative  Influence  of  Christianity." 

"  Relations  of  the  Sabbath  to  the  Social  and  Civil  Condition 
of  a  People." 

'*  Claims  and  Influence  of  Public  Worship." 

"  The  Relation  of  Punishment  to  Government." 

"  The  Relation  of  the  Doctrine  of  Future  Punishment  to 
Public  Morals." 

*'  Usury." 

*'  Perjury." 

"  Position  and  Claims  of  the  Temperance  Reformation." 

"  Position  and  Tendencies  of  Romanism." 

"  Appeal  to  the  Working  Classes  in  Regard  to  Economy 
of  Time  and  Money." 

"  Popular  Violations  of  the  Laws  of  Health." 

"  System  of  Legal  Provision  for  the  Poor." 

'•  Economy  of  Prisons." 

"  Morals  of  Politics." 


Entered,  Recording  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1848,  by  J.  S.  Redfield,  in 
the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States,  in  and  for  the 
Southern  District  of  New  York. 


/ 


TRACTS  FOR  CITIES, 


FIRST    SERIES. 

It  is  proposed  in  this  series  of  Tracts,  to  discuss  the  appli- 
cations of  Christianity  to  the  institutions,  classes,  and  social 
economy  of  large  communities.  The  Tracts  will  be  furnished 
by  gentlemen  of  the  several  professions,  and  of  different  reli- 
gious denominations,  most  of  whom  are  favorably  known  on  both 
sides  of  the  water.  The  authofs  will  feel  responsible  only  for 
the  sentiments  of  their  own  Tracts  respectively.  And  the 
committee  disclaiming  the  sanction  of  every  sentiment  that 
may  appear,  will  only  vouch  for  their  candor,  ability,  and  gen- 
eral correctness. 

The  following  are  among  the  subjects  proposed  to  be  discussed, 
though  they  may  not  appear  in  the  order  here  enumerated. 

*'  Social  Position  and  Influence  of  Cities.^* 

"  Medical  Police.'' 

''Legal  Police." 

"  Police  of  tht  Press." 

*•  Frauds  of  Commerce." 

'•  Frauds  of  Office  and  Professions." 

**  Duties  of  Principals  and  Employers." 

*•  Eleemosynary  Provision  for  the  Poor." 

"  Suggestions  to  the  Working  Classes." 

**  The  Fine  Arts." 

*'  Public  Amusements." 

•'  Mental  Improvement  of  Young  Men." 

•'  Temptations  of  Young  Men." 

♦•  Temptations  of  Young  Females." 

"  Advice  to  Emigrants." 

"  Relations  of  the  Marine  Population." 

"  Relations  and  Influence  of  the  Theatre." 

'*  Relations  and  Influence  of  Sabbath  Desecration." 

'*  Relations  and  Influence  of  Intemperance." 

"  Relations  and  Influence  of  Infidelity." 

*'  Relations  and  Influence  of  Gambling." 

*♦  Relations  and  Influence  of  Magdalenism." 


4G21Tfl^l94l; 


